Exhausted

 I really didn't want to get up when the alarm(s) went off this morning.  I think I really did need more sleep, as by the time I had driven partly in near darkness and then driving into the rising sun, I found if I leaned forward when I was at the Fair, my head was a bit dizzy.  I wasn't excited before going, on the way, or once there.  This is unusual.  Anyway, I saw old friends and had a lovely chat with some dealers I'd not met before, and when I got back to the car, the chap in the next car and I had a good chat too.  The day was not wasted.

I loved this box lid, but unfortunately by the time I reached it I ony had the princely sum of £2.23 left in my bag . . .

I ended up with less money to spend as I was lucky enough to find Rosie's Christmas present.  

I had planned to buy her a Doll's House.  I didn't plan on buying her a Mansion house, but hey-ho.  I really loved this and it came complete with a big box of house contents.  This hit the exchequer with a big bite, but the Christmas present buying is going well and I hope to be done and dusted with it by the end of October latest. Looking up dolls houses on Ebay and Etsy, some of them are big prices in the hundreds.  The scale models of Georgian dollshouses especially.  One Oxford House kit was £650!!  I always remember a wonderful dollshouse shop in Bath, which sold tiny pineapples, bowls of fruit, copper cookware, chandaliers.  Ooh I was a child again!

These stunning German pieces were on the North & South Vintage stall and I had a lovely chat with the owners.  Very special designs these.

On a friend's stall.

On another friend's stall.  Beautifully stitched.

I loved this (on yet another friend's stall - we always chat, esp. as she's horsey).  

Last 3 photos from one of the Builth "neighbours" I chat to.  I would love the little stable in the background.

The view when I plonked myself down on a bench to ease my aching arms and shoulders (that dolls house is hefty).  Fortunately another friend helped balance it on the camping trolley on the way back to the car over the rough bit of track, and helped me lift it into the car.

I am so glad that tonight's meal is leftovers from last night.  All I want to do is sit down and do nothing now.  Think I will take a Panadol and see if that will ease my head, which is a bit tight from all the concentration today.

Coming home, I passed lots of bikers going home in the opposite direction.  There has been the usual Bank Holiday biker fest on the showground and they had it wet in their tents, poor souls.   I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  Tomorrow is September.  I am SO glad Autumn has arrived.

Still down in the dumps and Synchronicity

 I woke an hour before the alarm.  It is dry but we have had a goodly amount of rain and everything is grateful for it.  A green blush everywhere now.

I am busy with needle - my gardening jeans developed a tear on the other leg, so, pretty patchwork to cover it . . .

First I sew a strengthening patch on the inside of the leg to cover the torn area and then the pretty patches on the outside.  This should last a while now anyway.

I have also started sewing Rosie's x-stitch for Christmas which is a Puffin.  I have a Puffin I bought in a charity shop, and it is looped over a candle on the mantlepiece.  Rosie loves it, so I thought I would make her one for herself.  Nothing to show yet as I am just doing the black back of it but it is quick to stitch and I had the colours I needed in my stash, although the dark tangerine is one number out but near enough not to matter.

Synchronicity.  I watched the latest (well, 2020) movie of Rebecca this week and it just so happened I decided to buy a paper yesterday and it just so happened that this article was in it!  There is a new biography about Daphne du Maurier by her grandson, which will hit the shops next month.  I will try and see if I can get it through the Library as at £25 it is too big an indulgence to buy.  I have another biography on her and don't think he will uncover much fresh ground, especially as her diaries cannot be accessed before 2039 (50 years after her death).  It's called Last Night I Dreamt, and is by Paul de Zulueta, in case you are interested.

I am enjoying Running for the Hills, but he has his mother arriving on her own, a local taxi all the way from Abergavenny! and arriving at a freezing house and wishing there was a stove.  Well, surely there MUST have been some form of heating - an open fireplace at least - or else the last owners couldn't have lived there. She foolishly pulls out all the bits of newspaper and disgusting old rags which were stuffed in the walls and bitterly regrets it the first time there is a gale, which howls into the house through all the gaps in the walls!  I have memories of returning from Keith's brother's after going there for New Year, and our old house would be SO COLD - it was like walking into a fridge.  The first thing we did was to light the big Hergom stove, which in those early days was multi-fuel and ran on wood or coke.  It devoured wood like there was no tomorrow and I can remember Keith cutting up a fallen oak tree which barely lasted 6 weeks for fuel . . .  I also remember wondering why on earth there were the lids of (probably baked bean) tins nailed at intervals along the skirting boards . . . this was a simple and efficient way of keeping the rats out . . .

I think part of the reason for being down in the dumps is because Keith's mobility scooter is going.  With it go such sad memories of when he could barely get about and going to Malvern was such a challenge for him.  He would have had it months earlier had not Tam encouraged us to try and get funding for ex-military personnel.  It took over 6 mths - and we didn't get it in the end - and we had to declare each and every single expenditure, which was very uncomfortable to do, as you lost all privacy.  All that has returned to haunt me.  Today's challenge will be trying to reverse it backwards up the ramp, heaviest bit first, then turning it off to lower the steering column and somehow heaving it into the other vehicle.  I am glad the chap buying it will be there to do the strong-arm tactics!  We have arranged to meet half way, which makes life easier anyway and I can get some bits of grocery shopping afterwards - cat food from B&M Bargains.

Last night I was watching History Cold Case USA - a couple of programmes, where they try and trace the ancestry and identity of long-dead skeletons (over 150 years ago).  It was really interesting and amazingly they did manage to identify one young couple buried together in one coffin - she died first of cholera and her husband just a couple of days after.  Another was a Native American Indian from the West Coast, who had travelled across America and ended up buried in New York state, a Christian burial at the fort where he had been a soldier.  

Right, this won't do.  Time to get myself tidy to go out. Update: chap buying scooter had great idea of using the ramps to make a bridge between our vehicles.  Some disassembling required, but it worked a treat.  Phew!  

Not motivated

. . . However, I have fettled something that needed fettling (with wood dye).  I have posted a parcel and had some exercise walking round town.  I just don't have the energy to go further as it is muggy here after the rain.  I have answered questions about the mobility scooter and been paid.  I deliver it over the weekend.  I have put in an order for some heating oil and the scooter money should pretty well cover it.  86.5p a litre though.  Sigh.  

In my walk round the town I did a loop and passed my favourite house.

My soup (of which I had some at lunchtime) was very tasty and full of lots of veg.  I really SHOULD get on with Rosie's little dress but am not feeling the least bit motivated.  Perhaps if I Google how to sew a simple child's dress I may get on with it.  Well - back again and that made it look incredibly easy, whereas I have talked it up into something only geniuses can do!  Technique is different to what is written on my pattern though. . .  

I will at least go and find my Christmas X-stitch magazines.  I found the lovely runner above, which I could make with some of the Christmas fabrics I have in my stash.

There are some lovely ideas in this little booklet, which was a freeby with Country Living one year.

My 3 old Just X-stitch Christmas magazines . . .  Plenty of choice for tree ornaments.  I have put a cheeky bid in on another Just X-Stitch Christmas magazine.  It would be nice to have something to look forward to.

I shall sit down with a book and a cuppa now.  Current book is Running for the Hills by Horatio Clare.  I am also idly reading a book of short stories by Elly Griffiths, but they are very poorly crafted. I really want to start Death in A Desert Land by Andrew Wilson . . .  Watch this space.

I have gien myself a cheerful afternoon by buying a 2012 copy of Just X-Stitch Christmas magazine from Ebay (put in an offer).  I have been sat down watching the 2020 version of Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca".  Excellent.  Lily James starred as Mrs de Winter, and Armie Hammer was Maxim. If you haven't seen this version, I can recommend it.

I have decided what x-stitch Christmas tree decorations I will sew for my grand daughters.  Of course, one suggested a silvery Aida which I got rid of a couple of years ago.  Drat.  I just didn't keep it long enough - clearly 20 years was too short a time frame :)

It's as black as a . . .

 . . . Kangaroo's jockstrap in my house.  That erudite expression was one my late ex-husband used to use.  Pretty sums up how it is in the house - without the kitchen light on I couldn't see the other side of the room.  Thunder is rumbling round and it has been really chucking it down.  In fact, it rained overnight and then we had steady heavy rain this morning.  I can practically see the green bit of my lawn in the shade of the house at the back, growing as I watch.  Now it has rumbled past the Epynts and over towards Hereford, giving Glascwm a good soaking on the way over.  Just a little blip there on the FireMap now and the ones around the valleys, also well soaked and faded on the map.

As it had cooled down and felt like Autumn this morning, I made a pan of soup - a sort of Minestrone type with tomatoes, bacon, onions, carrots, leeks, cauliflower, potato - using up stuff which needed using.  Tea tonight was a mince and rice "thing" which doesn't look very colourful (should have used passata) but used up a tin of just out of date Kidney Beans, some tomatoes that Ed gave me, and bits and bobs.  Edible but not exciting on the palate . . .

I had a lovely day with family here yesterday.  Today feels rather flat with the house empty again.  We were making Christmas plans and it looks like Gabby and I will be here alone for Christmas Day and I suggested an Indian meal, leaving the roast until the others were here.  Danny and Emma and "I" will be moving into their first home together in mid-September, and will obviously want to spend their first Christmas day there.  I am now having to share Tam and Rosie with Jon's folk and it's their turn for Christmas day this year .

I have just had an enquiry about Keith's mobility scooter, so am hoping that it will sell.  Positive thoughts please, for a sale (could do with the money for the heating oil . . .)  I would have to deliver to Pontypridd though, but hey, that's a day out.

I popped to the Library today to collect the Library book I had ordered, Andrew Wilson's Death in a Desert Land. His heroine is Agatha Christie.  I'm enjoying these . . .

I found a new-to-me Jason Statham film to watch last night, "Shelter".  Keith and I always loved watching his movies.  He's got a new one hitting the cinemas shortly, but I will probably have to wait until it's on tv.

I hope you have all had rain in the UK.  Lord knows we need it.  Farmers are debating whether it is worth sowing crops for next year, so we could be in dire straits with food supplies if they deem it's not worth it . . .

Is this neat enough Miss Huggins?

 

I found this x-stitch Robin when I was tidying up my sewing things this week.  I thought I would turn him into the Christmas tree hanging he was originally meant to be.  So, I folded over the edge and neatly tacked it . . .  Not too difficult to do on Aida.

Then I found a film on Amazon Prime and stitched as I watched Twisters.

I enjoyed the film and the sewing.  I have also discovered some Laura Ashley 1980s patchwork hexagons which I had started edging, so I will finish them off and list them on Ebay.  

Well, I don't know how far my cake went as I found out that there were 12 Fire Crews from all around the area working on the fire at Glascwm. . .  A few crumbs each perhaps!

We are meant to have rain starting today and very heavy tomorrow, so I hope that helps to put out remaining fire.  The one at Maerdy looked very bad in the posts on Facebook.

I forgot to mention something that brought me such joy on Monday morning.  I was in the bathroom and craning my neck out of the window to see if my neighbour's friend's car was still down there.  The House Martins suddenly began flying up to the nests, 30 or so of them, just inches from my face, and their shadows swooping across the wall beside me.  There is one last lot of eggs being laid and brooded.  I'm not sure what the fledged youngsters were doing flying up to the nests in such numbers, but what a delight it was.  I really miss them when they leave, even more so this year as we have had 6 nests built (2 in previous years) and so LOTS of House Martins about.

Now, I have been awake 2 hours.  Perhaps if I read a bit more I may get back to sleep but I am about to hit the exciting and scary bit at the end of the book so perhaps it won't exactly lull me to sleep!

Sky full of smoke

 All across the town and heading Eastwards, there is a pall of smoke from the fire and the air is thick with it.  I will definitely have to use my mask today to go and water round at Ed's.  I have to go to the PO too, to send back the dreadful mascara I bought online.  It is rubbish.  Then hair wash and clothes in the washing machine.

This is the smoke coming up from the Glascwm fire.  Yesterday my friend whose home overlooks a broad vista, saw some kids running along the top of a nearby hill.  Then a little while later, 9 of them on top of it again, one with a bag . . .  She was worried sick that they would set light to it.  Then she saw them in fields below the hill and managed to alert the owner of the land, who came out.  Who is to say what they had planned?  I see that two farm barns full of hay/straw have been set alight to in Herefordshire.  I feel so sorry for the farmers - loss of barns and all their winter feed/bedding . . . 

There has been a dreadful fire at Drummau Mountain too (towards Neath).  I think a Nursing home was evacuated.  Never wanted torrential rain for a week so much . . .  There looks to be some coming in on Thursday.  

Right, not a good note to start the day on.  Off to do something POSITIVE.

Update - the Something Positive.  Ginger cake.  One on the left for my family tomorrow (Gabby, Danny and little "I" visiting).  The big one for the Fire Crew.  They have earned it.

A lucky haul from Tesco's recycled shelves and Fire Updates

 

I thought I would do the week's shop today as I needed fuel for the next Malvern Flea, and Tescopolis had an offer on the cat biscuits the cats like (Iams).  I checked out the charity bookshelves before starting my shop, and struck lucky.  All of these appear to be brand new so I wonder if they are remaindered stock from the Tesco shelves.  The two Lord John ones are particularly welcome anyway, the Elizabeth I biography looks good, Michael Jecks' books are good and the Witchfinders one could be good too.

My stye has finally calmed down, after a week, and I tried the new mascara today.  What a waste of money - managed to effectively hide my eyelashes rather than enhance them, clumped them into wafer thin bits and was very difficult to remove . . .  Back to Max Factor 2000 then . . .

Finally - pudding today - a meal early as I had a skimpy lunch of home grown Red Zebra tomatoes (I will grow these again, they're lovely) and a chunk of one of Ed's cucumbers, and the last two slices of Pastrami . . .

It's quite windy today, but I shall let my lunch go down and go for a short walk and perhaps find time to carry on with the gravel weeding.

Update, minutes later.  Another fire - Glascwm, over towards Hundredhouse, which may have started up afresh and with this wind will really spread.  Fire Brigade in attendance.  Update 3 p.m. - I can see smoke billowing up from Glascwm - it's 7 miles away as the crow flies, and there are multiple fires by the look of things on FireMap.